Planning vs. Winging It

No matter how many plans you make or how much in control you are, life is always winging it. --Carroll Bryant.

 If you've ever wondered why anyone should bother making doilies, here's one of the reasons I came up with:

 

This is a pattern by Zoya Matyushenko called Calla, and I have admired it for quite a while now, but I could not think of where on earth such a thing could be shown off in my world. Do I have tea parties? Nay. Do I make tablecloths? Nope. But do I wear denim jackets? Heck yeah, I do.

I am very proud of how well I stitched this thing down onto the jacket. I very carefully (and very tediously) stitched every single picot down and worked around each millimetre of the perimeter to make sure not one single thread was going to lift and pull away from the jacket. I also tacked down the centre section so that it wouldn't pop up whenever I moved around:

I showed it off on one of my online groups and someone said, "I would walk into a room backwards if I had a jacket like that on." And well, I guess I better start practising, because I am very, very pleased with it. It was a plan that worked well from inception to completion. Mission accomplished, pip pip.

I sway back and forth between being really precise about my plans and totally winging it. Last week, for example, someone gave me a whole lot of grapes from their garden... far too many for us to eat and way too many to tempt the fruitflies into my house. I got home with them at 6:30pm and promptly decided I'd make them into jam:

Have I ever made grape jam? Well, no... but I figured I could keep the skins on for the pectin to make them gel, and I could mash them up while they cooked so I could sieve out the seeds and I figured I could add sugar at about 3 parts grape to 2 parts sugar... and maybe it would need about a tablespoon of lemon juice... And well, it worked, because I got some really nice jam out of it. Winging it? Success:

So with my current knitting project, I am trying like heck to plan it, but it's turning into more of a winging it game. I originally planned to do something with stranded colourwork, but there wasn't enough contrast between the two yarns. Then I thought I could work it into some kind of a "fade cardi" that is all the rage right now, but variegated yarn is sort of fading in AND out of the picture. So now, it's kind of a stripe experiment:

Thing is, I discovered that the two skeins of silver grey yarn are actually quite different from each other, one darker than the other. You can't really tell from this photo, but I'm really working hard to blend them in with one another. You'd think I'd check the ball band... you'd think I'd KEEP the yarn band... or you'd think I'd at least put the two skeins next to each other at least once. But no... that would make things way too easy. At least I'm liking the effect so far:

I also had the bright idea of working in some waist shaping as it's been a long time since I've worked that into any of my garments. Can I remember how to do it? Well, sorta. I'm winging it. It'll work out somehow.

I'm on holidays for the next two weeks, and I am torn between getting the list done and just taking the days as they come. There are certainly things that need to get done, but I am loathed to be a slave to the "must do's." My plan is to get them out of the way early this week and then I can enjoy myself the rest of the time. We'll see how that works.

Anyway, I have grand plans to get a cup of tea and a scone now. No winging it there: I plan to have a warm scone with a dollop of grape jam. Best plan ever.

Have a great week!